Today the NJ senate voted in favor of giving adoptees access to their birth records. A news articles in the Home News Tribune can be accessed at http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061204/NEWS/61204008

The results of the vote were 26-12-1 to have NJ open access to birth records. Now, the bill only needs to pass the Assembly but they have not yet considered the bill this session.

As of current law, NJ adoptees can only obtain a copy of their amended... more

Searching and waiting seem to go hand in hand. Waiting really is the hardest thing to do. One example is that when you contact the adoption agency that handled your adoption you have to wait to hear back from them. If you are a natural parent you are waiting to hear if your child has been in contact with them and if you are an adoptee you are waiting to hear if your natural parent has been in contact with them but also your non identifying information. If you are a natural parent who can initiate a search or an adoptee who is making contact through the agency... more

There are many search angels out there and I applaud each and everyone for the amount of time they volunteer to the search efforts that they do. On the flip side though I have seen search angels doing all the searching and making contact and then things go up in some because it was all done for them.

It is so important that triad members searching be involved in their own search and not just turn it over to a search angel. The reason I say this is because it helps the person who is searching to be aware of what is involved and appreciate the work the... more

The years and months that passed our lives went on but I know that her baby was always a part of her and in her thoughts. We would talk about it off and on through out the years and I know she struggled with it.

Somewhere though along the line, she accepted her decision was final. She knew that she made the right decision for her and that it was her decision. When she met her husband we talked about it yet once again and she told her husband shortly after she realized that their relationship was serious that she had a baby in high school... more

There were some comments to one of my blogs last month that I feel I wanted to address in an additional blog. The blog I am referring to is National Strange and Mournful Day that was posted on November 29th in the National Adoption Month category of this blog.

First off, I commend that a commenter recognize that there are many that feel they were coerced but it is not the experience of all. Unfortunately, we don't hear from those who have had a more positive experience. Then again, if they don't feel coerced or whatever words we... more

In reading my list mail this evening I came across an interesting site at https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/. The site is titled My Family Health Portrait and it is a tool provided by the US Surgeon General.

My Family Health Portrait allows you to create a personalized family health history report from any computer with an Internet connection and an up-to-date web browser.

The Information you provide creates a drawing of your family tree and a chart of your family health history. Both the chart and... more

Over the weekend I received a link to information about a national organization responding to National Adoption Month. The organization is Origins USA and the article states that Origins USA is a national organization of mothers who have had children taken for adoption, see this as a very painful, life altering event, and not something to be celebrated.

On the 30th of November, members of Origins USA, other supporters of natural families, various activism and support groups and their friends and families... more

When using the Social Security Death Index and viewing the field “last residence” try to remember that this is the address of record. It does not mean that this is the place of death. A perfect example is an elderly couple who had a summer home in the Northeast and a winter home in the south. The husband had passed on while residing in Florida but in the search results of the Social Security Death Index last residence is listed as a northern state. Many people have two official addresses especially if summer and winter home is involved.

Another... more

When searching the Social Security Death Index you can search b y date of birth and date of death as well as where a person lived and applied for their social security number. This is often times where the office that issued the Social Security number was located. You can also search using the residence at time of death which is the address of record but not necessarily where they lived or died and finally where the burial allowance or death benefit was sent.

According to the Social Security Administration a Social Security Number is composed of three... more

President Franklin Roosevelt said in a radio address on the third anniversary of the social security act on August 14, 1938 “"Long before the economic blight of the depression descended on the Nation, millions of our people were living in wastelands of want and fear. Men and women too old and infirm to work either depended on those who had but little to share, or spent their remaining years within the walls of a poorhouse. The Social Security Act offers to all our citizens a workable and working method of meeting urgent present needs and of forestalling... more